desolate

The drive on the highway by the Mediterranean in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, is scenic and, these days, desolate.

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026

“Tapeheads” captures a specific moment in Los Angeles history, sure to be nostalgic for some, from a desolate downtown to a percolating music scene.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

A failed plan to bring in casinos left the area desolate after other businesses closed to make way for development that never emerged.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

"A fire is devastating. People who want to come will come anyway. But it’s not the same seeing the green hills as seeing them completely desolate and black."

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

The old people, Ultima said, always helped each other; through good or bad they stuck together, and the friendships that were formed in that desolate llano were bonds for life.

From "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya

But your misrepresentation which pained me most, in fact desolates me to the extent that I am unfit for work, is your statement that I weigh 200 Ib.

From Time Magazine Archive

The sudden death of Leontes' young son desolates him.

From Time Magazine Archive

He visits Barbara's soup kitchen shelter and proves with an open checkbook that he can bribe the poor and buy the Army, which desolates Barbara.

From Time Magazine Archive

Her face is quite colorless, but she can not altogether hide from him the sadness that still desolates her eyes.

From The Haunted Chamber A Novel by Duchess

"You at least do not hate me," she says, with a faint, sobbing cadence in her voice, that desolates, but sweetens it.

From Portia or By Passions Rocked by Duchess

"This was the first time I realized what an enormous task it was to take a piece of desolated desert and turn it into a blooming oasis," Zer writes.

From Salon ● Nov. 20, 2024

Hospital director Dr Muhammad Abu Salima has called on the WHO and the UN to help the medical teams and patients "leave this desolated place".

From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2023

Even in the depths of the pandemic — even when the world locked down, leaving billions isolated and desolated — there were those who danced.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 16, 2021

Everywhere in this desolated settlement, the forest, whose decline the episode had just detailed, is reclaiming its space.

From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2019

But there were not many black people visible on this day and Paradise had the look of a town desolated by plague or the rumor of plague.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

When D’Amore isn’t speaking — and for most of those three minutes and 40 seconds, she is silent — her body language is desolating.

From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2019

Unrelated begins in sociable aimlessness on an Italian holiday that becomes subtly desolating.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 2019

“The simple way...to put an end to the savage and desolating war now waged by the slaveholders, is to strike down slavery itself, the primal cause of that war.”

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

It sounds as if your mother is relatively young herself, so this is a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s which is even more desolating.

From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2015

But the flowers, the smell, the movement of the leaves persist, rich, mesmerizing, desolating, infused with grief.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood